Monday, July 5, 2010

Another Parallel to the Chronology of Secret Mark in a Marginal Note in a Coptic New Testament

First the Letter to Theodore:

As for Mark, then, during Peter's stay in Rome he wrote an account of the Lord's doings, not, however, declaring all of them, nor yet hinting at the secret ones, but selecting what he thought most useful for increasing the faith of those who were being instructed. But when Peter died a martyr, Mark came over to Alexandria, bringing both his own notes and those of Peter, from which he transferred to his former book the things suitable to whatever makes for progress toward knowledge ... and, dying, he left his composition to the church in Alexandria, where it even yet is most carefully guarded, being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries.

The marginal note in the North Coptic manuscript of the Gospel of St. Mark reads:

And our honorable father Peter the chief of the apostles preached it (i.e. the gospel) in Rome, thereupon our father Mark wrote it and preached it in the city of Rakoti (Boucolia) and its border, and all Egypt, and Lybia, and Africa, and the Pentapolis and the Ethiopians, and he went to rest in the Rakoti on the last of Pharmuti


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